Tony Banks Interview

Six, Seven and More - 16th Feb 2012 (via phone)

it: Before we really start I have to
mention that I haven't heard all the music on the new album yet. Your management sent us a CD with one minute of each track, so unfortunately I
cannot go into much detail with the music.

TB: It's not coming out for half a
month or so, that's probably why.

it: The Turn It On Again tour ended in
October 2007, while the recording for the new album began in March
2011. Did you spend the entire time working on Six?

TB: Well, not all, I suppose. I didn't
really have anything written at the end of the tour, but I had it in
the back of my mind that I wanted to do another orchestral piece, so
I started working, not straightaway, though. I must have been working
steadily on it through – it must have been summer 2009, and most of
the stuff came during that period, really. After that it was a
question of how I was going to do it, who I was going to use to help
me. It's obviously been a year since I actually finished the record.
It's been finding record companies, sorting out everything, as it
happens. It always takes longer than it should, really. I'd rather
have everything happen rather fast.

it: The booklet mentions that Six is
slightly different from Seven. What are the main differences?

TB: The obvious difference is that
there are six pieces instead of seven. That's a difference [laughs].
The most obvious thing is that two of the pieces are kind of led by a
solo instrument, one led by an alto saxophone and the other led by a
violin. From the back of my mind I was trying to do it a little bit
more like that, which is slightly more like the solos I used to do
with Genesis in, say, The Cinema Show or Apocalypse in 9/8 in that
one instrument would lead and the background was slightly less
important, as it were. I had one piece that always felt like it would
be quite good led by an instrument like something like a saxophone,
and that was there all along. The other piece, which is violin-led,
was more like a kind of background for something, I didn't quite know
what. It could have been quite anything, really, it was sort of a
fast piano piece, but then I thought if it had a nice doodling on top
of it, this could work really well as a kind of solo for something
that is going quite fast. And the obvious instrument for playing fast
is, in the classical world, I think, is the violin, which is
expressive in the way a guitar is. So that's what I decided to do,
really. Once I started to do a few bits and pieces it came very
easily.

it: What else is there to know about
the album?

TB: I still worked with an arranger
again, a different one this time. I think some of the pieces are a
bit further produced this time prior to getting that stage. Another
difference is that the titles do ... ahm, I'm not very good with
titles for classical, orchestral pieces because to me they're just
music, really. But they did form into a kind of very natural idea of
a simple story, with the two solo pieces being sort the main hero and
heroine, if you like, of the story and the other pieces suggesting
parts of the story, with the final piece being the most dramatic one
which is also the destination, the reason for the story. I think it
works quite well as that. But it is not really something that you're
supposed to think about.

it: Why did you choose the City Of
Prague Philharmonic Orchestra?

TB: Well, I would have tried it in
England, at least with the London Philharmonic Orchestra – I just
find it is prohibitively expensive, really, to get any kind of
rehearsal time with the orchestra when you do it over here. And a lot
of people suggested that doing it in Prague was good work doing it,
with in particular with a group of musicians who are put together by
a chap out there for all the orchestras in, in … well in all the
Czech Republic, really. And you'd be getting a little bit who is
available and have certain core people who are available all the
time. And I must look at expenses so I said I'll try that 'cos I
imagine I would get much more time with them and rehearsal time and
everything for considerably less money than it would cost me over
here. You know, these things, putting an orchestra together and
making a recording takes a lot of time and money and you're not
getting it back 'cause it is not really going to sell to justify it.
It's just one of those things. So I just thought „Keep everything
in track“. As it turned out, I actually had more time with these
guys than I needed. They're real quick, very good, used to working
perhaps with someone more like me, and rehearsal time... We really
did have just one day rehearsal, but it made all the difference
really in terms of – particularly in terms of correcting the
scores, so you can get rid of all the obvious errors and also make
any adjustments we felt were necessary to the most obvious things
that occurred to us in terms of the arrangement, so we would hear it
back and get a real idea, tempos and everyone would feel... When it
came to actually recording it for real we were sort of halfway there
already. Some, in particular the slower pieces, came really quickly.

it: Will there be any live performances
of your music by an orchestra?

TB: Well, that's something I'd like to
do. There is no plan at the moment, but it's something we've talked
about. It could well happen, I think. It would be nice to do.
Particularly this one. Seven as well, I sort of decided to do that,
although I would want to rework some of that, as it happens. It's
certainly something that various people talked to me about and it's
something that might happen, but I always feel a little bit „wait
and see“ how the record is reviewed, how it goes down towards
people. We will see where we go from there.

it: He's been doing it for quite a
while now, playing Genesis songs with orchestra. Can you image doing
something similar with Genesis music, maybe with Mike and Phil?

TB: It interests me a lot less, really.
How Pete did it was kind of like orchestra arrangements for the
pieces, but in those terms it was attempting to be classical style of
orchestral music. The arrangements in the main were really simple. I
haven't heard what Ray did. I didn't really like what, um, the guy
did... the Genesis symphony thing... Tolga Kashif. I didn't feel it really
did justice to the pieces, you know. I think if you gotta do it it
could be done. The songs to be done there would be kind of much more
involved. I would want to sort of write to the heart of anybody and
do something significant. I don't know. It is old music. Whether I'd
want to do that or no I don't know. Some pieces would lend themselves
to it. I mean, one of the pieces that Tolga did was Mad Man Moon, but
he only used about a minute of the song, the rest was all kind of his
own stuff. I didn't think that was very good. The minute of the song
sounded good. It's a perfect piece, I think, to do an orchestral
adaptation of. I was quite excited when I saw he'd done a
twelve-minute version of it. I thought that could be great! [laughs]
And I was very disappointed, I have to say. There are obviously
songs like Firth Of Fifth that lend themselves to orchestral
performance, and other bits and pieces, but I don't know. I don't
know if I've really got the sort of … It takes lot of time, energy
and everything to do this, and I feel that this is music that …
worked very well in one medium. It's been done. If someone else wants
do it, well, that's fine. In all honesty, I didn't feel that, with
what I heard from Pete and stuff, it added really anything to the
original. A song like San Jacinto has a bottom end that is created by
the instruments he used originally is so fantastic – you can't
really create that with an orchestra and stuff. It's a different
thing. It's a different take on it. Some people like it, some people
don't. I didn't see it live, and I'm told that it was very, very good
live, and I'd like to have seen it live, but I didn't get round to do
it. It's not something I care about quite so much. The marriage
between rock and pop and classical music has a fairly checkered
history, I think. I can't think of any examples where it's been
particularly effective.

it: What do you think: Was the Turn It
On Again tour the final activity of Genesis or may there be another
tour, another album even?

TB: Well, you must have asked this
question of pretty much everybody, I suppose, [laughs] and the answer
is pretty much no. It's more about Phil than anyone else out of
Mike, Phil and I who sort of feels that he's done it for the last
time. He has a few physical problems with his arm and so that idea of
playing a ten-minute drum solo doesn't seem to be quite so appealing.
I think Mike and I are could be possibly convincible, but... it's
not. I don't think it's ever gonna happen now and I don't think and I
can't see anything else from the record-recording point either. I
think everyone's sort of gone a bit in their own directions now. But
you know, I never rule it out. Who knows? I see Mike quite a lot and
anything could happen in that direction, but I don't see anything at
all in the Phil way.

it: What are your personal plans for
the future?

TB: Well, obviously I've got this
project which will see me through the next two or three months now,
really. A lot of it depends on how this is received. I've done a lot
of solo albums in my career as you will know with, I suppose, in all
honesty, pretty little success, and you've got pick yourself off the
floor each time to get yourself motivated to do it again. I just
don't know, really. I'd love to do this again, I think, but I don't
want to go on banging my head against the wall the whole time.
Because everytime you put things out you go through all this series
of anticipation and you want the thing to do well and then the
disappointment is always quite a thing really. I don't see the point,
particulary, in doing that. I've made a lot of music during the years
that -I- 've been very pleased with. A Curious Feeling, when I first
did that I thought that's some of the best music I've ever written,
including with Genesis and so. It did okay, but not terrifically
well. And I tried to revert back to it again a couple of years ago
but that didn't really work. I mean, it's out there, if people wanna
hear it they're welcome to it. [laughs] To do more – I just don't
know. It depends a bit on how I feel. I'm sort of approaching genuine
retiring age, and there are a lot of things I'd like to do. I love
playing music but the whole circus of recording and stuff and
certainly the circus of having to then afterwards promote it … I
love writing and I love making music. The rest of it I can live
without. And if it doesn't produce a great result you slightly lose
interest.

it: So how about a Best Of Tony Banks
Solo album to get people interested in your music?

TB: Yeah, it sounds promotable. The
thing is what I'll do, what we're talking about, we're gonna get my
website working properly again and we might make all the albums
available there. I thought of doing a kind of best of, but in a way
it's a slightly difficult thing to do. You're gonna promote it to
people who're probably gonna know it anyhow. I thought about it
because I thought it would be quite nice to have a sampler album of
all that I think are the best things. It's something that I might do.
It's possible. It's kind of difficult to know where A Curious Feeling
fits in with that because I really don't like to take bits and pieces
out of that context of that album. I feel it works as a total. So you
have to think do you do this album or all the other stuff? I don't
know. I have thought about it but I can't quite see what the point of
it is apart from the fact that it means I have a kind of nice ordered
way of saying, 'well, these are the things I think you should listen
to'. But you can't promote anything these days in order to get radio
play or anything, so it's … I'm slightly … I don't know.

it: What about a CD release of The
Wicked Lady?

TB: We'll definitely do that if we do
all – the idea is to put out all the records so we will probably do
that one as well at the same time because it should be out there. It
has nice things on it. It is a curious mixture of things, really,
because the original record, one side had sort of demos that I did
for the original pieces and on the other side were obviously the
orchestral versions, including one slightly embarrassing version with
drums and bangs all over the main theme which I would be very tempted
to leave off. But I suppose I will get stick if I do that. But I
think the main... the whole suite is the kind of the thing, it's an
example side of how I'm writing at home. What I really do, putting
together with a piano and a few bits and pieces to try and get some
idea of how it might all sound.

All in all, Wicked Lady was a fine
experience when I did it. I was just very rushed at the time I did it because I was doing The Fugitive at
the same time and probably put more effort into that. And I relied
quite a lot on the arranger, Christopher Palmer, when he came to it,
and to be honest, for one or two of the pieces in the orchestral
version he actually wrote some thematic pieces as well in that so
it's not quite so hundred percent me as everything else I've done.

it: Let me say then „good luck and
all the best for your new album“...

TB: I hope you enjoy the record when
you can hear it properly. I'm very pleased with it. The reaction so
far has been very good but then before it comes out it often is, so I
hope you enjoy it.